Monday, 29 February 2016

The halls of Purgatory are busy with the hustle and bustle of activity as we rapidly approach Salute 2016, our first expo. We can't wait!

Our stand has been allocated and we are on TK27 at the top of the hall.

So what has been happening at Purgatory exactly. A lot, let me tell you... come on over and listen in :)

Hannibal, Apostle of Murder Inc. With his trusty elephant has been cast as a master! It looks great. Sculpted by Lux Thantor, at 32mm to the eye, Hannibal comes with his pet elephant and a specific base. Produced in high quality resin by GRX this model will be available slightly in advance of Salute.

Bobby B, alternate Apostle to Soul Train (as an event only model) this 32mm to the eye model was against sculpted by Lux Thantor and is created by GRX in high quality resin. The model comes with an event only playing card and is only available between the 15th and 17th of April initially.

Keysha, footslogger from the Soul Train is available for pre order now and we expect her at any time in the next week. Keysha is 32mm to the eye, sculpted by Fancagne Didier of Kaha Miniatures and comes with a unique base and in 5 parts (including the base). You can grab your copy of Keysha from the Facebook store.

Walking seamlessly into this subject the Facebook store has been launched. You can get all 3 of the currently available models from the store and we will be adding more as they come out.

Play testing has begun and more on that below.

Parlor Tricks has joined the Refugees of Religion in game testing and will be debuting this week as we attempt to test our first truly ranged faction that is Gift of God cards attuned.

Erishkigal is in the works with Gautier Giroud and WIP's are starting to come through as we look to bring the next model to the range!

So there has been a lot going on. Parlour Tricks will be going to the artist in the coming week as we look to finalise our compliment for Salute to give you a broad view of what we are bringing to the party.

Talking of party, ours has got bigger, with over 600 likes at the time of writing we are pleased to thank you for sharing the word of Purgatory amongst friends and fellow gamers! We are humbled by the following we are developing and look forward to bringing something fun to you in the coming weeks.

So let's talk fun and maybe some specific mechanics of Purgatory.

The stat card is straight forward and we will discuss this today. So we have the following:

M - Movement. With the game being alternate activations, AP can be used to move. There is the mechanism to triple move to keep slower characters in play. Its worth remembering that we have angels and these guys can fly which adds a nice depth of movement values to keep people guessing.

Ma - Melee Attack. When you enter the melee in Purgatory, this attack, following a standard table will demonstrate your proficiency in close quarters.

Ra - Ranged Attack. This shows your proficiency in ranged attacks. Some of the cohorts are more proficient at shooting. Watch out for Parlour Tricks in particular.

Ca - Casting. Most characters are '0' however this does not stop them. This stat is used for the Gift of the Gods cards and allows players to boost their chances of achieving the casting value on any given card. The Gift of the Gods cards are drawn each game turn at the start and can give you the upper hand. There are 2 of 30 different cards for you to choose from which will enable you to build your own deck and tailor it to your faction.

S - Strength.

D - Defence.

HP - Hit Points.

Dex - Dexterity. This is probably an interesting part. In other games, you have a number of saves that work in different ways. Dex is a version of that. If an ability should cause harm and states that 'no armour saves are allowed' then you would use the Dex save. This represents a realistic spin on our world, because lets face it, a 70mm cal tank round to the face and most armour just won't cut it, no matter how holy you might be. So Dex represents instinct and reflexes as you hear a bang and think oh sh......

AS - Armour Save. It's the other mechanism to Dex. However represents where armour might actually be beneficial. So is used when 'normal armour saves are allowed'.

FF - Fight or Flight. Will you run or will you stay. It's a version of leadership and primarily works in tandem with psychology or 'scary shit' as we call it. In addition, in Purgatory, you can take a 'savage beating' which requires a FF test if you lose more than half of your wounds in one activation. It acts as a mechanism to react to changing circumstances.

Other information:

Merc Cost - This value represents the cost to synergise between the cohorts. Like we said in other publications that we will be allowing freedom to players to mix cohorts to generate unique and bespoke synergies to suit your playing style or your preference of model. The merc cost is there as a balance against some of the synergies you can create. There is a further downside to mercs. they cannot benefit from a differing Host's FF or benefit from their specific angelic ability so be careful to offset the AA vs the synergy on offer.

Angelic Abilities. There are 4 and each Host can bestow this ability for 1 AP cost to any member of her specific cohort.(I.e. Erishkigal and Soul Train) Heavenly Grace allows you to recover a lost wound for a non host model. Sinister Possession allows you to bestow an additional AP on a model that has already activated or not. Bounty of the Gods will allow you to draw 2 Gift of the Gods cards and choose the most suitable one for you this turn and finally Undying Legion boosts character stats for a whole game turn. All of which have their benefits.

Other things shown on the stat card are the abilities themselves, alongside some unique character special abilities.

This BLOG could go on forever listing these but as a flavor, with Hannibal being one of the foremost generals in history, it was only fitting that 'King of the Aps' should allow this apostle to redeploy d3 models after your opponent has full deployed. Just as a taster.

So, that is probably, well definitely, the biggest single piece of information on the game that we have released.

And there is more, oh so more because we have played now 6 games, with Soul Train leading the win table with 3 victories. We will keep adding to this table and over the coming weeks will publish these results to give you a feel of how each faction matches up.

Friday, 5 February 2016

Welcome back to the Purgatory BLOG. So much has happened in the last few weeks since we last posted that it might just take up the whole screen. Just kidding. (But it might)....

So what's happened since we last wrote?

Keysha is finished. The model which was sculpted by Fancagne Didier of Kaha Miniatures was completed in last January. The model is now over at GRX creations and will be available in the next 2 weeks. We can't wait to get our grubby little mitts on this Disco Diva.

Hannibal, this Apostle from Murder Inc. is on the table with Lux Thantor (sculptor of Death and St Peter) and is 95%, I've seen the proof of its existence. With his mighty, yet quite tiny, elephant alongside him, this guy offers something different to the gaming world.

Bobby B, this is the limited edition character for Soul Train. This event only model is 95% done and is being completed by the aforementioned Lux Thantor. This guy will be on sale at Salute and will be available on the day only to people online, so set the date as a reminder for your diary. Bobby comes with an event only playing card so don't miss out.

Erishkigal has just been started. If you follow the newsletter you will see some more updates on this lady later today. This is the fabled Host from the Soul Train and is the 2nd angel to feature in our world. This model is being sculpted by Gautier Giroud and will be available to buy in the lead up to Salute and on the day.

And that is not all....

The game rules are now at version 2. Yep, if you are following Purgatory then you will know that we are now playing live games. The rules are in place and Soul Train are taking on Murder Inc. with growing frequency.

Beasts of War are following our project alongside Tannhauser Gate Studios and the Hairy Bikers which is fantastic news for the project and we are extremely grateful for their continued support.

Items are starting to drift in for Salute, tables, banners, leaflets and fliers are all starting to arrive and it is getting very exciting with less than 2 months to go.

30 Gift of the Gods cards are in design with 3 artists

A comic strip especially for Salute has been commissioned

Gangbangers are in the final stages of the design process

Refugees of Religion are out there and ready for some love!

Game Changing:

If you have been following these posts since the beginning you will see quite the journey. Having never gone through the process of designing, sculpting, producing and distributing models it was quite the eye opener but we have all taken it within our stride. Making a game however, that is intense and it's quite the learning curve.

When you make a game, you have to give it an identity. Doing this is especially difficult given that there are a multitude of high quality games out there already as well as up and coming. There is a big danger here when trying to establish your own identity and that is to make something so intricate or complex that actually you end creating a monster, or something very complicated to play. Which can ultimately turn people off.

Side stepping this Mario Kart sized banana was the most integral part of our design process and we believe we have done this well. The key to Purgatory as a game was not to create something absolutely box fresh and hot off the press, but to refine existing core mechanics, making them personal to Purgatory but also add that little bit of flavor that makes it our own.

But why?

A goal of Purgatory is for you to be able to acquire the knowledge swiftly, to enable you to quickly process the mechanics, turn sequence and character identities so that you can immerse yourself in a game quite early into your investment. We buy table top games so that we can play them with friends, not to let them sit on the shelf and gather copious amounts of dust.

With that in mind we have used some existing mechanics in our approach so that there is a familiar feel to the game you are going to play. Most gamers have played some of the longstanding traditional systems and as such they have a bedrock of understanding that helps them translate new rules or gaming systems as they come out. It's like you guys have a skeleton key, you just need to work out which way to turn the lock.

The edge...

The game flows smoothly thus far (famous last words), the turns work and actually there is enough going on to keep you interested. With most battles being at around 500 points, it's looking like you can get between 6 and 10 models in your contingent which means, it's not even a huge investment to play a game.

What adds more flavor and a certain edge is the synergy between hosts and the cohort. Because in Purgatory you can field absolutely anyone alongside your host, finding that balance adds some depth and flavor to your contingency selection process. The discovery of certain synergies may lead to the creation of very competitive contingents being fielded when the game goes live.

Add to this, the Gift of the Gods cards that you draw each game turn you have some variety that can see a winning position swiftly turn on its head if you use the card in the right way.

An adult theme!!! 18 Rated?

It's not quite that bad, in fact it is not at all. But Purgatory does have an adult theme. For example, what would be called Psychology in other games is quite simply 'Scary Shit' in the world of Purgatory. There are some moves that have an adult theme from some the female characters, though when used they are blended with a humorous tone that brings a smile to the face instead of a frown.

We can't have a world where angels are murdering people by the thousands and mankind is waging a gutter war amongst itself without having a darker side to it. This is what Purgatory as a game portrays.

So what next?

Well alpha testing will continue for the coming months, bringing Parlour Tricks, Refugees of Religion and Gangbangers online to test against the first two contingents and we can't wait to show you the results.

Thanks for coming back and following this project and we would love to here your thoughts.